The present invention relates to child resistant closures and containers, and in particular to child resistant closures and containers requiring deformation of the closure to achieve opening.
Many closures and containers include child resistant features to minimize the opportunity for a children to obtain access to contents of the container. One type of child resistant closure and container, commonly referred to as a squeeze-and-turn closure, includes one or more locking teeth disposed on the closure that cooperate with one or more lugs on the container. The locking teeth engage the container lugs to prevent removal of the closure from the container without squeezing the closure to deform it, thereby disengaging the teeth and lugs and allowing rotation of the closure. Such a closure is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,534 to Montgomery.
One problem with child resistant closures and containers is that some persons, for example elderly persons or those with debilitating conditions such as arthritis, may have difficulty removing the closure from the container. For example, some squeeze-and-turn closures may prove difficult to deform sufficiently to achieve clearance between the closure teeth and the container lugs. In addition, the arrangement of the teeth and lugs may cause these elements to engage unnecessarily or to fail to engage. These problems may be exacerbated, for example, in closures and containers that require very small tolerances in manufacturing.
A child resistant closure and container combination according to the present invention includes a container having a neck with an engagement mechanism such as an external thread. The container also includes at least one container lug. The child resistant closure includes a top wall with a skirt depending from the top wall, where the skirt is preferably provided with a complimentary engagement mechanism such as an internal thread. A plurality of locking teeth are disposed on the inner surface of the skirt, with the plurality of locking teeth being arranged circumferentially around a portion of the inner surface, and the locking teeth being arranged axially offset from one another. The closure may also include a thinned-out region in the vicinity of the locking teeth to facilitate deformation of the closure.